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Return to Mercury So far, Mercury has been visited by only two spacecraft. This enhanced-color mosaic of Mercury was assembled by Ted Stryk from many individual frames taken by Mariner 10 as it departed Mercury after its first flyby on March 29, 1974. The subtle colors weren’t visible in contemporary versions of the mosaic; returning to it with modern digital image processing, Stryk found orange, purple, and brown shades in the color data. NASA / JPL / Ted Stryk